Car break ins suck. I truly wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
The phone calls to insurance and repair shops can be so irritating.
However, as irritating as this may be, it probably pales in comparison to the
employees that left unencrypted hard drives that only contained the last four digits of the SSN, bank account numbers,
names and salaries of over 25,000 employees.
Fun, right? Let’s avoid this.
Today we are going to show you how to securely store and access your content. This is DIY in 5.
Hello everyone, my name is Trisha Hershberger and you are watching DIY in 5, the show where we
break down tech topics into easily digestible bites in 5 minutes or less,
so that you can DIY your own tech.
Today, we’ll be going through the various ways you can protect yourself and your precious data -
whether it be sensitive company info, vlog footage, or that Halo fanfic you’ve been writing for a while.
It’s more important now than ever to keep your files safe, so let’s make sure that you are covered.
If you find the tips in today’s video useful, please be sure to like this video, subscribe to this channel
and ding that bell so you don’t miss out on any future tech tips.
Never before have people had such large digital footprints.
For example, if you are a content creator your content is literally your income
- or in some cases the companies that you are working with - potential income.
Some of your data could be content that you sell on a recurring basis.
You could even have company proprietary information such as info on a new product or technology that was signed under NDA.
If that type of content fell into the wrong hands, the financial fallout could be catastrophic.
So how do we protect ourselves and our data?
Encryption.
Encryption is defined as the process of converting information or data into a code, specifically to prevent unauthorized access.
Remember, people have actually lost company hard drives like the example I gave earlier.
If you are not encrypted, your data is viewable to any and all that have access to the files.
A cost effective way of keeping content private is by using an encrypted drive.
Encryption can be done either through the device's hardware or via software.
So let’s breakdown software encryption vs hardware encryption, since these are the two real options out there.
Software encryption is done on your existing machine and not the physical drive itself.
The main machine has to run all of its primary functions while maintaining the software encryption,
and the encryption is protected by the machine’s passcode, not the physical drive.
Hardware encryption is done away from the machine on the drive.
It is harder to break because its password is separate from the main machine.
It has to be known explicitly to gain access to the drive.
Hardware-centric, software-free encryption is the most effective means to provide protection from cyberattacks.
The most basic method of attack on encryption today is brute force or trying random keys until the right one is found.
Let’s say a person has the Kingston IronKey Vault Privacy 80ES hardware-encrypted external SSD
and their standard work issued laptop in a coffee shop. They have both on the table.
A thief is watching them from behind and waits for them to unlock their laptop.
The thief comes in, nabs the laptop and runs.
You could have a false sense of security that all you suffered was a laptop loss, because the laptop itself is password protected.
But remember, software encryption is protected by the main machine's password.
Once the main machine's passcode is accepted, the laptop’s hard drive is ready to hand over the data.
All the thief has to do is keep the laptop screen from timing out and they can steal all of the data from your main machine.
But what if the thief stole the IronKey VP80ES instead?
Well, the thief would have run to a place where they stashed a computer to try to read the drive.
The drive supports a maximum password character length of 64 characters and allows alphanumeric password rules.
And thanks to brute force attack protection, they only have a few chances to guess the Admin or User password
before the drive crypto-erases its contents. Too bad, so sad.
Now let’s go back to the coffee shop without our thief present and do what we set out to do,
and that's finish transferring data from your PC to your IronKey VP80ES.
Step one: Unlock your PC.
Step two: On your VP80ES, select the role (admin or user) you want to use, enter the passcode and connect to your computer.
Step three: Drag the files you want protected from your PC to the VP80ES for secure storage.
When disconnecting, always remember to tap the "Lock and Disconnect" button to safely remove your drive.
The IronKey VP80ES was designed to protect data and if someone loses their User password,
the Admin can reset the password and restore the user's access.
You know you hate to be that person to ask for a password reset, but after you get through the pain of asking
you are on cloud nine that all of your data is not lost.
Alright, so if you take away anything from this video, always remember your password!
Ok, I lied, there is one more thing to take away from this video.
Let it be that most of us need to use encryption.
If you do have to transport company data on an unencrypted hard drive, don’t leave it lying around.
As always, my name is Trisha Hershberger and I’ll see you next time in with more DIY in 5.